Speak Stiltedly and Wear a Yellow Shirt

Filk on demand - one muse, no waiting…

Title:   I Will Revive
Author:  Jemima
Series:  TOS
Summary: A filk of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" for Rocky.

Oh, once I was a god
I was idolized
For bringing order to a world
I should have sterilized;
But then my flock put up a fight,
Foolish quislings led astray -
I slipped away,
I fled in the Bot'ny Bay.

And now you've come
To outer space -
I just woke up to find you here
With that dumb look upon your face;
I would have set another course,
I would have hewn your family tree,
If I had thought for one mad moment
You would dare to follow me.

So this is man
You look the same -
Still no improvement
I see the race I overcame.
Just like the sheep who sent their shepherds to the sky
You thought I'd perished,
You thought you'd kissed Khan goodbye...

Oh no, not I!
I will revive -
Genetically superior,
I know I'll come alive.
I've got one more life to live
I've got sins not to forgive
So I'll revive
I will revive

And by my superhuman strength
Saved from death's embrace,
In Sickbay on the mend
I'm glad to see a friendly face.
I have dreamed two hundred years
Of angry rabble in my way,
But she will stay,
Yes, I've found a mind to sway.

I grow fatigued
I will retire;
Back in my quarters, oh, lieutenant,
You and I'll conspire.
Because she felt like dropping in,
Because she knelt and made her plea -
Yes, she came despite my warning,
She has bound her fate to me.

So this is man
You look the same -
Still no improvement
I see the race I overcame.
Just like the sheep who drove their shepherds to the sky
You thought I'd perished,
You thought you'd kissed Khan goodbye...

Oh no, not I!
I will revive -
Genetically superior,
I know I'll come alive.
I've got one more life to live
I've got sins not to forgive
So I'll revive
I will revive

So this is man
You look the same -
Still no improvement
I see the race I overcame.
Just like the sheep who chased their shepherds to the sky
You thought I'd perished,
You thought you'd kissed Khan goodbye...

Oh no, not I!
I will revive -
Genetically superior,
I know I'll come alive.
I've got one more life to live
I've got sins not to forgive
So I'll revive
I will revive
I will revive

Oh, once I was a god
I was idolized
For bringing order to a world
I should have sterilized;
But then my flock put up a fight,
Foolish quislings led astray -
I slipped away,
I fled in the Bot'ny Bay...

[fade out]

You see a character you like, whom everyone else hates, and you want to redeem them. You have a weakness for second-person fic, though you’ve never dared to write any of your own. Put the two together and you get fic in the second person, present tense.

You’re amazed at the immediacy of this new perspective. You hope that being addressed as the character will give your reader some sympathy for this misunderstood soul. No one hates themselves; people are quite forgiving of their own perversions. You’re hoping that they’ll forgive one little mutinous love affair, or better yet, understand it.

You become discouraged when every paragraph begins with “you,” and you wonder what the maximum tolerable length of a 2nd-person POV fic is. It can’t be much. You begin to chat in the second person, and that inspires a blog entry but it doesn’t solve your problems.

You decide to hope for the best.

I’ve added a TOS section to the website to house my two Khan filks and my collection of Khan links. (For legal reasons, the Khan image collection is not on-line, though I may eventually link more good Khanage.) I managed to track down the STII movie trailer and some helpful reviews of The Eugenics Wars.

This is my first site update since the awards season started, but not the last of the Khan. His is the superior ficcability.

In my Khan research, I’m currently looking for Punjabi historical fiction. I tried What the Body Remembers by Shauna Singh Baldwin but found the feminism too jarring, out of place, and annoying to read the entire novel. I found an on-line translation of Sundri by Bhai Vir Singh at sikh.net. [Warning: the story is incomplete, though there’s more than enough there to get the idea.] As pulp, it’s a great read, but for historical flavor it leaves much to be desired.

I have a weakness for pulp fiction, especially Edgar Rice Burroughs. There’s something about all the fighting and damsels in distress and romantic misunderstandings that never fails to grab my attention. Yes, it’s cliched and repetitive and unrealistic, but I like it. Someday I hope to write my own.

With the conclusion of AAA and the ASC Awards, a new fanfic year starts for me. In the course of the past month and a half, I’ve been reading reams of fanfic, including almost all the VOY fic posted to ASC this year, some TOS, TNG and MIS (miscellaneous Star Trek works not necessarily associated with a show), and at least the beginning of every non-smut story in AAA. Now that the feedbacking frenzy and AAA voting are over, I have time to write again.

Reading and evaluating all that fic, even if it’s only for a 1-2-3 vote in AAA, is a lot of work, so it’s insulting when someone like the person Rocky blogged about accuses you of having voted for your friends or otherwise unjustly ignored his latest masterpiece. It’s also discouraging to see minions and sockpuppets trying to undermine the voting process.

One thing that doesn’t bother me is losing. I didn’t place in AAA, but I read some memorable stories (all by other people who didn’t place, but that’s another kettle of fish). I don’t know what the results are for ASC, but I’m not going to be Best Author or anything of the sort and that’s fine with me. I figure I’m a writer’s writer - that is, other writers seem to appreciate my writing more than the average reader does. That means fewer votes, but they’re more precious to me.

I love all the feedback, of course, and I never object to a nice graphic, but the biggest benefit of Awards season for me is reading other people’s fic that I’ve been putting off all year. I used to read and write only VOY, but gradually bites of TNG, TOS and MIS have been added to my menu. (ENT has been banned because no matter how good it is, it still reminds me of the show. Brrr.) And it’s that foray into reading TOS that brought you…

Khan filk! Sometime before Awards I’d thought of writing a Ceti Alpha V story, but, like many stories I thought of last year, I never actually wrote it. Then I read Rabble Rouser’s “Weeds” and started thinking again about my idea of Ceti Alpha V. I’ve always found that an overdose of other people’s fic gives the muse more ideas.

So my fanfic resolution is to write more TOS, possibly even involving some bridge crew - but that’s a stretch for me. I’m a Khan fan first and foremost.

Thanks to RJ, my sister queen.

Numenorean

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla

This one’s for Jerie, though Seema’s to blame for the title. You can hear the tune at Slushbuzzz’s Midi Madness.

Title:   Raj of Rage
Original: "Turn the Page" by Bob Seger

On a long and lonesome journey
In the Bot'ny Bay
You've been sleeping out the decades
Driftin' through the Milky Way.
You've been dreamin' of the nation
Or the world you ruled just yesterday...

But your dreams will soon be memories
Of deeds that others rue;
When you wake another century
Will strive to conquer you,
And you come this close to dying
But you know your trip is through.

Say...
I am Khan - entertain me for
I am Khan - new to your age.
I was Singh - Sikh conquistador,
I was Singh - Raj of Rage.

Then you wake up on the Enterprise
Wary of your fame,
And you see their dull suspicion
As you tell them half your name;
You pretend they could be different,
But mankind is still the same.

Most times you can fool them all
Other times you can't -
Still the same old question,
Are you a monster or a man?
And you find your kind outnumbered -
You have to make a stand.

I am Khan - entertain me for
I am Khan - new to your age.
I was Singh - Sikh conquistador,
I was Singh - Raj of Rage.

Study their schematics -
You're two hundred years behind;
Technical advances pose
No challenge to your mind.
As you plan to seize this starship,
Take the woman that you find.

Make a new beginning;
As you struggle to survive
Watch a red star dawning wrathful over
Ceti Alpha Five -
This earth a howling wilderness
And yet you're still alive.

Ah...
I am Khan - entertain me for
I am Khan - new to your age.
I was Singh - Sikh conquistador,
I was Singh - Raj of Rage.

I am Khan - entertain me for
I am Khan - new to your age.
I was Singh - Sikh conquistador,
I was Singh - Raj of Rage.

I’m going through a Khan phase.

Filk:       What Man is This?
Original:  What Child is This? by William Chatterton Dix (1865)
Tune:  Greensleeves

What Man is this, who laid to rest,
In cryofreeze is sleeping?
Whom Marla eyes with anxious sighs
While redshirts watch are keeping? 

This is Khan Noonien Singh
Whom redshirts guard unwavering.
James Kirk will strand him in
The Ceti Alpha system.

Why wakes he from his cold repose,
Two hundred years a-drifting?
Doth Starfleet fear this pioneer,
One-handed McCoy lifting?

So bring him manuals technical,
Your vessel wants his scrutiny.
Eugenic men will rule again,
If Marla aids his mutiny.

This is Khan Noonien Singh,
Whom redshirts guard unwavering.
James Kirk will strand him in
The Ceti Alpha system,
  The Ceti Alpha system.

Lori told me about the title meme, though her own response was lost in the ether. I did see Liz and Rocky’s answers. I’ve never had much trouble assigning titles, but most of them fall into a few large, uninteresting categories:

Abstract Nouns: Assimilation, Ambassador, Colony, Hiatus, Lethe, Lurking, Taboo; Ship in a Bottle, Preliminary Debriefings, Home Front, Holodeck Safety Protocols

Concrete Nouns: The Author, The Dance, The Museum; The Bottle of Bajoran Blue Wine: A PADD Story, The Efficiency Expert, A Maquis Holiday; Jade’s Drabble, Mushroom Soup, Beta Energy, Haiku for Anne

Other Fragments: Choose Life, Like This, Logic Dictates, Thrive, Tertiary

Now those are all servicable titles, right up there with real-life titles like The Hobbit and Memory. You don’t find too many artsy, obscure titles on the bookshelves - publishers tend to go with short, strong and memorable. On the other hand, a Trek writer has the example of Shakespearean quotes used for TOS titles and the temptation to reuse good titles from Trek past:

Literary Quotations: To Perish in that Howling Infinite (Moby Dick), Once More Unto the Breach (Henry V), Honey-Dew (Kubla Khan), Video Meliora Proboque (Ovid: “Video meliora proboque; Deteriora sequor” - I see the better way and I approve of it; I follow the worse.), Sans Ailes (Byron: “L’Amitie’ est L’Amour Sans Ailes” - Friendship is Love without his wings!)

Song Quotations: Take it on the Run (REO Speedwagon), The Wrong Emotion (REO Speedwagon), Every Word I Said (REO Speedwagon), A Light Beyond (Art Garfunkle), Than Fade Away (Neil Young), and about 70 filked filk titles which I won’t include here

Episode Names: Mirror, Mirror; Borg Error (a coda to Human Error), Au Naturel (a coda to Natural Law)

The Borg title classification above leaves only a few titles creative (or uncreative) enough to need explaining:

The Dance (Tunkai), one of a ream of Voyager stories called “The Dance.” The title was one of the requirements of the “The Dance” J/C contest for which this story was written. I gave my “The Dance” a subtitle from the story’s linguistic history of Tsunkatse to distinguish it from the other hundred stories of the same title.

The ChetSev Series is a nickname that eventually made it onto the website. JetC stands for Janeway et Chakotay, so I coined “ChetSev” as a joke to stand for Chakotay and Seven. Since it took too long to say “my series of episode additions to C/7 episodes” every time, I ended up making it the official series title.

One Line, Two Dimples was a short response to a challenge to write the same scene two ways, from the producers’ and fans’ perspectives. To TPTB, Robert Beltran has one line and he can’t get it right. To the fans he has…two dimples.

The Lamne’rau is Romulan for “the Borg.”

What’s Left of Her is a relevant Janeway quote from Unimatrix Zero. The story itself is an AU coda to UMZ.

If Ayn Rand Wrote ST:VOY is a response to the If My Aunt from Minnesota wrote Star Trek challenge.

The Unity of the Multiverse is a quote from near the end of the story, but I believe the title came before that section of dialogue. This one is my favorite title, for its techno-poetry.

Marriage is Irrelevant is one of Seven of Nine’s lines in the story. Otherwise, she was not a major character.

DQ Babes in the Mirror-Mirror Universe was intended to be as campy as the title implies, but the muse undermined it in production. I loved the title so I kept it.

Janeway: The Musical! (Filk of La Mancha) was inspired (as a title) by Jim Wright’s review of the episode “Muse,” which he nicknamed, “B’Elanna: The Musical!” The subtitle makes it clearer which musical is being filked.

Seven of Borg is analogous to Locutus of Borg. Seven of Nine is already Borgy, but I needed a title that said “over the top with Borg.”

148 is the number of days that Buffy was dead (the second time). At least one other fic uses that number in the title.

The Silent Movie of the Soul is another Buffy title. I’m pretty sure the story involves an actual silent movie, but the ponderous title style seems more appropriate for Buffy fic than Trek.

I just finished voting in the ASC Awards. The following filk was written in two parts as feedback votes for Penny.

The Ballad of Penny Proctor
(was: The Ballad of Davey Crockett)

Came out of nowhere back in Season Six,
Finest writer of a J/C fix
Wrote up a storm ’cause she knew ev’ry trick,
Wolf and the Otter was an easy pick:
       Penny, Penny Proctor - Queen of the Trekiverse!

Staked out a story of a court martial -
To her dark XO had she been partial?
And while she was making it judicial,
Made herself a legend auspicial.
       Penny, Penny Proctor - Queen of the Trekiverse!

When she saw Endgame and a Human Err’
In her heart she swore to that season repair,
In her VS there would be no affair,
Except J/C’s - that’s her favorite pair.
       Penny, Penny Proctor - Queen of the Trekiverse!

They rewrote the season from Shattered on,
Makin’ sure the Borg wouldn’t get her don,
Fought off Cardassians - now they’re gone;
Who’s leadin’ the VS like a fandom Khan?
       Penny, Penny Proctor - Queen of the Trekiverse!

Janeway came home, her voyagin’ done,
And found that her trials had just begun;
Saw her XO beside her in the desert sun,
But at the Oasis they found only one.
       Penny, Penny Proctor - Queen of the Trekiverse!

Her fic is longest, and her fic is best
From the days of ENT to the DQ quest
She’s ahead of us all in writing with zest
Comin’ out on top of every contest
        Penny, Penny Proctor - Queen of the Trekiverse!
        Queen of the Trekiverse!